A Fife woman who tried to gouge her boyfriend’s eyes out as part of a terrifying campaign of abuse has been jailed for more than a year.
Laura McArthur struck her partner with a wine bottle and bit him all over his body during their “toxic” relationship, Dunfermline Sheriff Court heard.
The 26-year-old was jailed for 16 months when she appeared before Sheriff Charles Macnair QC.
The sheriff also issued a five-year-long non-harassment order to protect her victim.
He told McArthur: “You committed domestic abuse by engaging in a course of abusive behaviour over a period of about six months towards your former partner.
“Domestic abuse can have a devastating effect on the victim and is rightly considered as a very serious offence.
“You have a record which includes violence and previous domestic offending.
“In the circumstances, I’m entirely satisfied that there is no appropriate alternative but a custodial sentence in this case.”
Campaign of abuse
The court heard McArthur verbally abused the man, threatened to have other people attack him and demanded he send money to her prison account while she was remanded in custody for another matter.
At a previous hearing, procurator fiscal depute Jamie Hilland told Dunfermline Sheriff Court the man was initially happy in their relationship, which began in June last year.
But the fiscal depute said: “He has now told police that the accused assaulted him on so many occasions that the dates blended into one.”
McArthur pled guilty to the charge of engaging in a course of abusive behaviour against her ex-partner when she appeared via video link from HMP Edinburgh.
Court papers state the offending took place between June 1, 2021, and January 22, this year, at addresses in High Valleyfield and Dalgety Bay.
Mr Hilland said that in September, the man’s sister heard McArthur verbally abusing her sibling in the background of a phone call to him and she could hear him crying and pleading with her to stop.
During the same month, the victim was on a car journey to Liverpool with a friend and received phone calls from McArthur shouting abuse at him, threatening to smash his windows and saying she was “going to get guys to batter him.”
The fiscal depute said the friend recalled the man being “terrified” at the time.
Another friend of the victim described seeing McArthur screaming at him and “making him cry all the time.”
Bite marks and bruises
A friend of McArthur’s reported seeing her on Facetime attacking the man and trying to “gouge his face off,” as well as hearing her shout at him and telling him to kill himself.
This friend noticed the victim was regularly covered in bruises.
On another occasion the friend witnessed McArthur slapping the man’s face and spitting in his face, without provocation and that she seemed to find it funny.
When challenged, she replied: “I’ll do what I f***ing want.”
In December, McArthur and her then-boyfriend were both arrested for a disturbance at his Dalgety Bay home and he later reported she jumped at him, tried to gouge his eyes out and punched him.
The fiscal depute said: “He held the accused’s wrists to stop her hitting him and the accused bit him all over on his body.”
The man refused to tell police what happened at the time as he wanted to get back on McArthur’s good side.
A friend picked him up from court upon his release and took photographs as he was covered in bite marks and bruising.
Struck with wine bottle
On another occasion, McArthur called her boyfriend at work and co-workers heard her screaming and shouting at him.
Mr Hilland said: “The abuse was such that he went home crying.”
The victim also reported he would sometimes wake up and McArthur would punch him on the face.
In January, McArthur and her friend returned to the latter’s home, where their partners had been drinking a beers while watching the football.
The fiscal depute said: “An argument ensued and the accused spat in his face and punched him on the face.
“The accused lifted an empty bottle of Barefoot rose wine and hit him with it.”
The court heard she attacked him again, punching him repeatedly and biting him all over.
Police attended the next day, following a phone call from McArthur who said her boyfriend was the one causing a disturbance.
When officers arrived, she was crying and the man was arrested.
Police noticed he had blood on his nose, bite marks on his body, scratches to his face, head and neck and reddening and a superficial cut to the left side of his stomach.
They also saw bruises on his body.
Enquiries were then carried out, which led to McArthur’s arrest.
Defence solicitor Zander Flett described the relationship as “toxic,” but said it didn’t start out that way.
